Multiple coworking spaces in same city

Not only are coworking spaces (shared open-plan entrepreneurial workplaces) fast becoming a standard office model in every city, but they’re starting to multiply.

San Francisco has at least four, one of the most recent being the largish (4500 s.f.) downtown Sandbox Suites (pictured above). Meanwhile, Seattle has several, the latest being GiraffeLabs (pictured below).

That doesn’t mean quantity trumps quality, as a single coworking space found out the hard way in the small town of Wassau, WI when it closed. The reason?

Lack of focus on building community. As its founder lamented on the Community Coworking Blog, “Had I had more time to do it all over again, I would have first focused on building up the local web community. Getting a group of like-minded people together takes time – especially in a smaller market like Wausau. My good friend Alex says all the time – community, community, community! I suspect that’ll be the way I do it next time.”

Image source: Sandbox Suites by deusx.

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neilkt